PS: Beware! Use of the links at your own risk. I just spent the last couple of hours on the first page I linked to.

Animals can become pregnant even if the males and females are kept physically separated. Dwarves presumably use the same mechanics for determining pregnancy.This has led to the widely-accepted theory that creatures in the game reproduce via spores.

Hilarious! But now I have to pull an all-nighter to finish that report in time.....

Affably Evil: The Dwarf Fortress player community is quite welcoming and helpful to new players, showering them with links to tutorials for the nigh-incomprehensible interface and helping them troubleshoot newbie mistakes and dwarven intelligence. They're also infamous for pushing Video Game Cruelty Potential to new and exciting extremes for the sake of convenience, lulz, and the dwarven way.

The Spartan Way: Dwarven "Child Care": "it's like regular childcare, except with more dogs, and less care."

And they sum up the dwarven way quiet well:

Dwarf Fortress fans are the kind of people to reject a simple, practical solution to a problem on account of it needing more magma.

Though I prefer:

The simple solution is to make it bigger. The Complex solution is to make it more efficient. The Dwarven one is to do both and use it to kill something.

For my first time seriously playing DF, I had built a fort in a mountain with a volcano and tons of minerals, and things were going great. I had managed to survive (mostly on fish- I had run out of food months earlier, and only had 2 outdoor farms) to the point where I had 23 dwarves and the first caravan arrived. As my dwarves were loading marble and copper nuggets (my only valuable commodity, which I was hoping to exchange for food and booze) to the trade depot, one of the immigrants ( a useless Clothier) went insane from Starvation+sleeping on the floor + no booze and murdered 4 children and a turkey before he was killed by a very quickly built militia. I abandoned the fort. This was about 3 minutes ago.

Fuck you Urist McClothier, I would have had your beer if you gave me like two minutes for the damn broker to reach the depot.

I'm currently embarking into a Terrifying Biome- All of my dwarves took a point in Ambusher for the free crossbows, I also brought a bunch of extra wood so I can immediately build a roof over my wagon when I start.

Keldoclock wrote:For my first time seriously playing DF, I had built a fort in a mountain with a volcano and tons of minerals, and things were going great. I had managed to survive (mostly on fish- I had run out of food months earlier, and only had 2 outdoor farms) to the point where I had 23 dwarves and the first caravan arrived. As my dwarves were loading marble and copper nuggets (my only valuable commodity, which I was hoping to exchange for food and booze) to the trade depot, one of the immigrants ( a useless Clothier) went insane from Starvation+sleeping on the floor + no booze and murdered 4 children and a turkey before he was killed by a very quickly built militia. I abandoned the fort. This was about 3 minutes ago.

Fuck you Urist McClothier, I would have had your beer if you gave me like two minutes for the damn broker to reach the depot.

Can't you at least reclaim? I would have kept going despite the inevitable tantrum spiral... usually things work themselves out. Usually.

Inspired by Bravemule, I decided to build a plains fortress. I was next to a river for an awesome watermill, and built a massive complex out of wood up top for a sweet castle defense. My first huntress became the personable and friendly sheriff. She was loved by all and things were good. Until Spring came, and with it - The Birds. Giant Sparrows and Keats continually ravaged my fortress. My Militia captain lost his arm in a fight, but despite his loss he continued to bludgeon things with a mace for years to come. My Sheriff however was less lucky and she was torn limb from limb. Her outstanding citizenship struck my dwarves hard, and every single dwarf appointed to sherrif either went insane, committed suicide, or in the case of one unfortunate sheriff, trapped in the caverns when a tantruming citizen destroyed the lever controlling the drawbridges. By the time it'd been replaced, his near-starvation had driven him mad.

Finally some dumbass took the trade depot apart in the middle of a goddamn trade so I got the fuck up out of there.